Race Review: Rock 'n' Roll Seattle Half Marathon

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It has taken me a while to figure out how to write this post. It was a strange race for me. I haven't been feeling well for over a month and it has really made running very difficult and almost non-existent. Anyways, I went into this race thinking that I would just go and have fun with no expectations.

We headed down to Seattle on Friday morning and went straight to the expo!

Outside CenturyLink field.

I was excited to see that Run Happy Island was there and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to ride the mechanical shoe even in a skirt LOL...

We did some shopping and took some photos with our bibs and then headed to our hotel to check in.

We had the usual pre-race dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with Nikki, Sarah, and Jacki. It was nice to continue the girls night tradition! After that it was time to head back and get ready for the race. I knew I wasn't feeling 100% and my nerves about the lack of running I'd done leading up to this race were starting to creep up.

The morning went pretty smoothly. After getting ready we headed to the monorail station and met up with the girls.

It was a pretty beautiful morning but it was clear that by the end of the race it was going to get pretty warm. As we got started I was already hoping for my walk break. I knew that it wasn't going to go perfectly but I thought I'd be feeling good for at least the first half. Unfortunately that was not the case. For such a beautiful course, one of my favorites in fact, it was so disheartening. We pushed on regardless. My plan was to strictly do my 10/1s for at least the first 10km and then reassess. Not surprisingly once we passed the 10km mark, things began to fell apart. We hit the really steep hill leading up to a long tunnel which also has an incline and that I remembered from last year and I had to walk most of that. I told Cindy to push on without me but she was determined that we stick this one out together.

I knew my favorite part of the race was coming up, the overpass that looks onto the water and I had the phone out ready to snap some photos. Practically the only photos I took during the race.

This course is truly one of the most beautiful races and a great tour of Seattle. After the overpasses, we headed back into the city and I knew that there was another hill coming up along the water. By this point we were mostly walking. I felt winded, sore, and completely done. I did my best to push through the last bit in hopes of a sub 3-hr finish. In the end, we came it at 2:49:33. Definitely not a PR but not my worst time either.

I had a nice time in Seattle but was reminded how important training is and that a half marathon even after 26 of them, is no joke, 13.1 miles is far no matter how slice it. I'm in a much different place physically than I was last year at this time and I think I'm beginning to accept it and work on what else I can do to get stronger.

Race Review Summary 

Package Pickup/Expo:
Rock 'n' Roll always does this seamlessly. We had our bibs and packages within minutes and then had a great time wandering through the expo and looking at things. I picked up some official Brooks merchandise as well (pictured below). We received the Run Happy Island shirt for free after riding the mechanical shoe.

Price/Value: $80-110 (depending on when you register)
I think I got it even cheaper because I used the discount from when the Seahawks won the Superbowl.
 
Aid Stations: 
Rock 'n' Roll always provides plenty of aid stations and course support. This is easily a race you could run without carrying your own water.

Course Difficulty: 
Moderate. There is one rather steep hill and quite a few rolling hills but the course is just so beautiful!

Medals:
Awesome as always! I was surprised that the sasquatch on the Pacific Peaks medal was actually fuzzy, strange but also awesome!

Running, what's that?

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Wow. It's almost the end of June? What is going on? Time is disappearing before my eyes. Here's what's happening.

1. I had a Stella & Dot party last weekend and baked all sorts of delicious yummy treats like Strawberry Cupcakes, and Chocolate Salted Caramel Cookie bars and took pictures of none of it (blogger fail) so I'm working on posting those recipes for you. Maybe I'll just make it all again so I can have some nice pictures and something to eat LOL.

2. I still haven't started my practicum. I'm so tired. Ugh.

3. I'm running the Rock 'n' Roll Seattle Half Marathon on Saturday and I haven't laced up my running shoes in weeks. Yup weeks, approximately 3 weeks to be exact. This will be a first for me. It's all just excuses, but life got in the way and now I will face the consequences, but hopefully still have a great time! I need to run too, this is always how it happens; when I need it the most is when I don't have or make the time for it.

Stay tuned to see if I live through Saturday (just kidding) and add this medal to my collection! I'm excited to just get out of the house for a couple days and do something different.

4. I read a book. Imagine that? I'll have a review next week or maybe even tomorrow, if I'm feeling ambitious, for "the Vacationers" by Emma Straub (Hint: I liked it)!

Are you racing this weekend? Do you feel ready?

Race Review: Seattle Rock n' Roll Half Marathon (Part 2)

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Part 1

As we crossed the start line my nerves went away and I was excited to be doing another Rock n' Roll event in another beautiful city! We ran through the downtown part of the city for quite a while and there were spectators everywhere which is always awesome! Along with great spectators comes some awesome signs, this was one of my favorites:

I didn't have any trouble not having my water belt but we still chose to do our 10/1's. We were also still stopping at the water stations which of course wasn't necessarily lining up with our 10/1 intervals. I'm not sure why Nikki and I didn't plan this out better the night before seeing as how we knew where the water stations were going to be but we were too busy having fun to think about it I guess. At some point we decided we should probably be taking our walk breaks at the water stations, even though we didn't have any specific time goals because of another race the following day I really didn't want to take too much longer than my average.

I think it was around the 10k mark when we passed a huge water station that we made that decision...:

After this station we turned the corner and suddenly we were running along side the water, it was a beautiful view and even better there was a cool breeze that felt amazing, maybe that's why I finally felt like I found my happy pace:

This race has a reputation for having some hills but up until this point I hadn't noticed anything that horrible, I had a feeling "down" by the water that we'd have to go up at some point and I was right. There were some tiny rolling hills around the paved trail by the water, this was at the top of one of those hills during the "Blue Mile" to remember fallen soldiers:

There was quite a steep hill heading up into a tunnel as we turned away from the water, this was between miles 7 & 9. I'd say the tunnel was close to a mile long. I've never been very fond of running through a tunnel, it can get quite hot and muggy underground so it's just not ideal conditions for me. Thankfully there was a water station in the middle of it and I got a second to get myself together again before heading off towards the light at the end of the tunnel literally! As we exited the tunnel we were running on a highway which was a super exposed and it was starting to get pretty warm. Surprisingly, the heat didn't get to me in this race, I think I had been so concerned about it being pouring rain that I was just content to be dry. Nikki and I got talking in this section about my 1st Full Marathon coming up in September. It was strange to be reflecting on how far I've come and how far I've got to go in the middle of a race, but perhaps very fitting. It wasn't long before I recognized that we were back near Safeco Field, what a beautiful spot:

We had wide open views of the entire city and the water out in front. I love races where you get the opportunity to run where normally you'd only be allowed to drive. There's no sidewalk up there so it's not like you'd ever get the chance to take a photo like this. I knew at this point we only had about 6 or 7km left and I was still feeling good but I couldn't tell how we were doing for time because I had lost satellite reception back in the tunnel and it messed up my watch. We came down off this overpass and headed back into downtown where we saw the first marathoner go by! It's totally exciting but also kind of ridiculous that the first marathoner was going to finish faster than we were going to finish the half... but apparently we were still in good spirits (I think that's because we were at the top of a hill)!

Nikki had done this race the year prior so I was asking about what we had left and she was sure there were a couple more hills at this point I had to just buckle down and finish. I was nervous about our weird timing for the 1st 10k and I wanted to stay strong. I figured there was only one water station left and I really wanted to make that my last walk break. I was right about the last water station, after which I just wanted to be able to see the space needle because I knew that's where we were going. I swear I couldn't see it until the last kilometer at which point I had to look behind me, I was completely turned around. Sometime that's the great thing about an out-of-town race but sometimes, towards the end especially, I like to know where I am so I can decide how much to push myself. It didn't really matter because after another tunnel there was a horribly steep hill and I couldn't sprint up that. It wasn't that long of a hill but it was deadly, I hardly had anything left at the top but I saw the yellow Geico banners and knew that would be the beginning of the finish chute (the same as Portland).

And just like that, my 18th Half Marathon was done!

We finished at 2:18:24, that's a whole 10 minutes behind my current PR. Honestly I felt a little disappointed because I think we would have done a lot better if we hadn't have done intervals & water station stops for the first 10k. On the other hand I knew we had a race the following day and I decided maybe we were better for having gone a little bit slower. Our trip to Seattle was SO MUCH fun and I'd love to do this race again! As a side note if you are going to skip having a water belt, a Rock n' Roll race would be a good one to do it because there was a water station almost every kilometer.

I celebrated receiving my TWO medals (the 2nd one is the Pacific Peaks Medal for completing Seattle & Portland) by eating some leftover cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory, yum!

Race Review: Seattle Rock n' Roll Half Marathon (Part 1)

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Wow what a weekend! As I spoke about last week this past weekend was my first double race weekend!

To start off a HUGE weekend of running, on Friday I woke up at 4:00am and headed over to Surrey for the Marathon Kick-Off Event!

We had some delicious free coffee and spent some time chatting with some other local runners. Those who signed up on Friday got a $25 discount on Marathon registration! If you missed out but still want to join me on this great local run, you can register here.
The rest of the morning was spent packing and getting everything organized for the weekend and right on time (almost...) we were headed towards Seattle! I was pretty excited about the expo because the Portland Rock n' Roll Expo was pretty awesome. I certainly wasn't disappointed:

I picked up a couple of small things at the expo, one of which being a SpiBelt which I've heard a lot about recently:

You may be wondering why there is a pop can inside, well the lady at the booth made very clear that the pouch was so big it could fit an entire can of coke so I decided to try it out when I got home and it would in fact fit a pop can. I've never run a race without a water belt longer than 5k, at the expo I decided I would try something new this time around...







After a delicious stop at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner we headed back to the hotel to go to bed early... Well maybe not quite:

After laying out our run clothes and some shenanigans modeling our PJ's and all of our sparkly soul headbands we finally went to sleep ready for our early wake up call! I was the last to get out of bed... I wasn't feeling entirely ready to run but alas I was there so I eventually dragged myself out of bed and got dressed... We hopped on the monorail and made sure to get a nice shoe shot:

It wasn't more than 2 minutes until we had arrived under the Space Needle ready to go find the bag check and hit the restrooms. Here was our first professional picture of the day, looking a little sleepy still:

In this case our iPhone picture turned out a lot better!

After grabbing a bagel from this insanely huge bagel pile we headed to the restrooms:

The port-a-pottie line was quite a bit longer than expected. As Nikki and I were in corral 15 there was no real rush for us, but Sarah was in Corral 6 so at this point we separated and Sarah went off to hopefully find a shorter line. We heard the start from the lineup and at that point I started to get a little nervous but reminded myself that worst case scenario I'd start in a further corral which doesn't really matter because of course it's chip timed. Finally we got that out of the way and after a quick look around for Sarah we headed to the start not without another photo of course:

 We decided we'd hang out near the front and wait for our corral to get closer. Here we ran into Mom vs. Marathon, that was exciting because I've hardly ever met any of the bloggers I follow in real life! It's too bad we didn't get a photo! Nikki and I got one right before we jumped into a corral:

This post is getting a little long so I will post the second half of my race review tomorrow! Stay tuned!